


Our Little Anthem

by Pyrosane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Denial, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyrosane/pseuds/Pyrosane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George is coping very, very well with Fred's death.<br/>In fact, to George, Fred never even left at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Little Anthem

To George, the sidewalk is an ocean of badly cut little blocks that aren’t worth walking alone.

It’s literally like an ocean.

He’s never seen the sky shed tears this hard before. The rain falls down in great heaps, attacking his raw skin with snide pop pop pops before rolling off onto the pavement with a hiss.

Lithe wisps of heat are dispelled from the crevices, the ones that children step on while shouting, “step on a crack, and you’ll break your mother’s back!”  
He lets the water in, greeting every drop the way he would an old friend. He examines the color of the rain too, pale white when alone but refreshing and blue when their limbless bodies clash. As soon as they hit the ground, they explode, bursting into a million more tiny little drops, scattering about until George silently admits that they’re beautiful.

“Fred, look.” His voice is like the sound of an invading army’s cry, foreign and just a little bit haywire. The crescendo was off, he put too much emphasis on look, and Fred’s name sounded too dry. “Fred, look.” He tries again. It still doesn’t sound right. He needs to be happier.

“Fred, look!” That’s better. “Can you see them, Fred? Almost better than Zonko’s fireworks, aren’t they?” This time, George tries his hand at a laugh. That doesn’t sound right, either. “Ahaha!” _No, you bloody idiot! You don’t actually say the haha. It has to flow! Like...Like bludgers after they’ve had a good hit._

George laughs again. He takes a mouthful of air, then sends it tumbling out of his mouth in a little ball, shaped like happiness and tasting like a shudder of warmth.  
 _That was it! That was a good laugh. Nothing like laughter to solve the problem, eh?_

Just for good measure, George laughs again. He has to make sure that he’s practiced it enough, that it sounds just right, that it’ll always stay the same.

So he repeats the laugh like a broken record, each syllable turning more monotone than the last. But he gets it down, programs it into the broken circuits of his brain, and is satisfied enough to move onto another slab, carefully stepping over a rather large crack.

What George sees makes him happy.

“Oh no, it’s a muggle stinkbomb! Oy, Fred, you reckon they’re as bad as dungbombs?” George, as he’s quite grown used to, patiently waits for an answer.

He waits for an hour.

He sits down on the soaked grass, a desperate smile still plastered on his face, laughter still clawing its way out of his throat. “Fred, what did you do? I’ll bet you had one too many earwax flavored Bertie Bott’s, haven’t you? No wonder you aren’t talking!” When George starts to grow weary, he asks Fred if they can lay down. Again, there’s no answer, but George ignores that.

He settles himself in the mud, getting comfortable atop a mattress of green and brown.

He falls asleep.

He wakes up.

_Why are you sleeping, George? Come on, we’ve got chaos to cause and mischief to manage! No use sitting on your arse all day long!_

George smiles. And this time, he really does manage a laugh, a real one, which shakes his body and urges his head to feel light.

“I wasn’t sleeping, you were sleeping! This was your idea!” He screams as he chases after Fred. He can’t really see where Fred is going, but he still follows, restless and so, so happy, because Fred, you’re growing taller than me, Fred, look at all of these new tricks I’ve got, Fred, are we going to our magic shop, Fred? Fred look, Fred, Fred please, please look at me, Fred!

Without knowing why, George screams. He hollers a pitiful, broken scream that chases the thunder away, begging the world to take him too, to let him visit the other half of himself that, for some reason, feels much more dead than it should. George waits for three hours this time.

This is quite unlike Fred.

Fred hasn’t taken this long to answer him before.

And Mr. Weasley watches from a distance.

He watches the way George runs around, shrieking with laughter under a crude shower head.

He watches the way George keeps hopping on one foot and jumping over the same split on the tile floor, again, and again, and again, and again.

He watches the way George screams, and finally ends up on the floor, exhausted, with a small, desperate smile still plastered onto his face, laughter still clawing its way out of his throat.


End file.
